Paul Krugman is now a famour economist, but many years ago, he was “an oppressed assistant professor, caught up in the academic rat race.” So, he did what any good academic would do in that situation: he wrote a silly paper to cheer himself up. In this case, a paper discussing the issues that arise… Continue reading Interstellar Economics
Category: Science
Lab Visit Report: Four-Wave Mixing
The next lab visit experiments I want to talk about are really the epitome of what I called the “NIST Paradigm” in an earlier post. These are experiments on “four-wave mixing” done by Colin McCormick (who I TA’d in freshman physics, back in the day), a post-doc in Paul Lett’s lab at NIST. As Paul… Continue reading Lab Visit Report: Four-Wave Mixing
Lab Visit Report: Francium
As I mentioned a few days ago, I visited Luis Orozco’s lab during our trip to DC last week. I already talked about his cavity QED stuff, but that’s only one of the projects under development. He’s also working on a next-generation apparatus for the laser cooling and trapping of francium, to be done at… Continue reading Lab Visit Report: Francium
Tips for Speakers
Over at the new(ish) Of Two Minds, Shelley has posted a video giving advice on scientific presentations from a couple of guys at Michigan. They offer a few quick tips to giving better presentations: Know your material well enough to give it without slides Skip the outline (for short talks in particular) Minimize text on… Continue reading Tips for Speakers
Lab Visit Report: Cold Plasmas
Another of the labs I visited while in DC was Steve Rolston’s lab at the University of Maryland. This actually contains the apparatus I worked on as a graduate student, including many of the same quirky pieces of hardware– Steve was the PI (Principal Investigator) for the metastable xenon lab in the Phillips group at… Continue reading Lab Visit Report: Cold Plasmas
Physics Comes Marching In
The annual March Meeting of the American Physical Society is happening this week in New Orleans. This is the biggest physics conference of the year, by far, with close to 7,000 attendees– despite what you might think from the Internet, the Condensed Matter crowd who attend the March Meeting significantly outnumber particle physicists and high-energy… Continue reading Physics Comes Marching In
What Everyone Should Know About Science
Michael Nielsen is planning to attend an “unconference” and is considering possible topics. He quotes one from Eva Amsen: My idea: find 4 or 5 volunteers from different backgrounds to sit on a 20 minute panel and (with audience feedback) make a list of Ten Things Everyone Should Know About Science. Since we have a… Continue reading What Everyone Should Know About Science
Dinner With ΔKE
As mentioned previously, I was invited to discuss physics and politics at one of the local fraternities earlier this week. Oddly, given the primacy of Greek organizations on campus, this is only the fourth time I’ve set foot inside a fraternity or sorority house in seven years. The previous occasions were times when I was… Continue reading Dinner With ΔKE
Earlier Alcohol Prevention?
EurekAlert tossed up a press release from the University of Minnesota yesterday with the provocative title: “U of Minn researchers find primary alcohol prevention programs are needed for ‘tweens’” and the even more eye-popping subtitle “Study recommends that prevention programs occur as early as third grade.” What, you may ask, is the problem this is… Continue reading Earlier Alcohol Prevention?
Notes for a Discussion of Physics and Politics
The local fraternities and sororities hold occasional dinners/ discussions with faculty, to demonstrate that they’re engaged with the intellectual life of the college. One of my students invited me to dinner at the Change in Kinetic Energy fraternity tomorrow night, and I agreed to do a discussion of physics and politics. That’s a vague topic,… Continue reading Notes for a Discussion of Physics and Politics